Sheets That Slipped Through the Air- 適合中高級的英語短篇故事

Axel pushed a wheeled chair toward the meeting-room wall and stepped up, steadying his balance on the backrest. He wanted to connect the projector for an informal gathering planned in ten minutes, yet the cable dangled behind a loose ceiling panel. The metal sheet had been fixed years earlier by someone in a hurry, and half-turned screws now held it unevenly.

Wren waited below, arms full of extension cords. Axel had already checked the cable twice, so he pulled a small screwdriver from his pocket and began to remove the first screw. The tool slipped, tapping the panel, and the vibration travelled through the frame into a stack of plastic cups on the shelf behind him. One cup slid, nudged another, and the row toppled like slow dominoes toward the printer station outside the room. The final cup struck a pile of bright paper; sheets fanned outward, drifting beneath the printer’s intake tray. Sensors inside the machine misread the movement, and a rumbling feed roller tried to assemble the loose pages, drawing half of them inside at an angle.

A grinding alarm rose as the roller strained. Wren ducked under Axel’s boots, skated across the corridor, and lifted the power plug free before the motor burned. The paper stopped halfway, but the fallen pile continued to shift in the draft from the overhead vent, rippling across the tiles. Axel climbed down, pushed the chair aside, and pressed the loosened panel back into place so the drift of warm air met solid surface again. Sheets on the floor slowed, edges curling, yet one half-fed page remained caught inside the idle printer. A faint whirr drifted along the corridor outside.

阿克塞把帶輪椅子推向會議室牆邊並踩上去，雙手扶著椅背保持平衡。他想在十分鐘後的小型聚會前接上投影機，但電纜垂在鬆動的天花板板片後方。那塊金屬片多年前被某人匆忙裝好，半旋的螺絲讓它歪斜地掛著。

溫在下面抱著延長線等待。阿克塞已經檢查過電纜兩次，於是從口袋掏出小螺絲起子開始轉下第一顆螺絲。工具打滑，敲到板片，震動沿著框架傳到他身後架子上的塑膠杯堆。一個杯子滑動，推到另一個，整排像慢動作骨牌般倒向外頭的印表機區。最後一個杯子撞上亮色紙堆，紙張向外散開，飄到印表機進紙槽下方。機器內的感應器誤判了動作，轟隆的送紙輪試圖把鬆散紙張拉進來，結果斜卡住一半。

馬達嘶鳴時，溫從阿克塞腳下滑過走廊，拔掉電源插頭，防止馬達燒壞。紙張停在中途，但落在地面的那疊仍在上方通風孔吹出的暖風中翻動，沿磁磚表面起皺。阿克塞下椅，移開椅子，重新壓回鬆動的板片，讓暖風再次被實體結構擋住。地上的紙漸漸靜止，邊緣翹起，不過仍有一張半卡在停著的印表機裡。走廊盡頭傳來微弱的嗡嗡聲，持續回盪。